Case Study | Music Video

Task

Dafna teaches Fine Arts in a Vancouver Board of Education (VBE) alternative high school program. Students there have, for various reasons, struggled in mainstream high school programmes. At her “school” a flexible structure, condensed (4 hour) day, and interdisciplinary approach to curriculum all result in increased attendance and improved grade 12 completion rates. Using classroom-based, small group and self-directed pedagogical approaches, students work through materials at their own pace, following Individual Learning Plans developed collaboratively. Currently the learning group Dafna facilitates has eight students studying Music 10.

Previously Dafna has created music videos of herself for her Music 10 Guitar students, which have been very well received. This year she has an even more exciting idea: having students make their own music videos of themselves.

The school has five (5) acoustic guitars available, and 4 iMac computers (which are used for other program components in addition to Music). Dafna has her own video camera and tripod, which students can borrow. Her Director has agreed to purchase 10 mini-DV cassettes for the project.

Because of the flexible nature of the programme, Dafna need only develop an estimated time for the lesson to be completed. She also has the option to make this an iterative tasks: one that students revisit from time to time over the course of several months. The iterative approach is more easily adapted to the school, so Dafna expects the activity to go something like this:

Activity	Time Needed	Notes
Camera basics	2 hours	Done in class
Shooting video	2 hours	Done in class and out in the neighbourhood
Editing video	10 hours	Capture, cropping, transitions, soundtrack, titles
Post-production	5 hours	Export to DVD, iPod formats

Discussion questions

Please answer them in the discussion forum named Dafna, under Module 5:

Based on the resources available, how might Dafna organize this activity?

How might she disseminate the music videos, once created?

Response

Dafna has already developed an estimated time for the lesson on making a music video.  Based on the resources available (5 acoustic guitars, 4 iMacs and 1 video camera with tripod), Dafna has several options in organizing the activity.  The following ideas are suggested and may or may not be appropriate given how many students are actually in the course:

• she needs to determine if this is a group or individual activity.  There are advantages to organizing the assignment as a group activity such as peers benefiting from the prior knowledge of others including technological capital and the creative collaboration process.  Additionally, there would be a lessening of conflict surrounding scheduling of resources.

• she needs to develop a system to sign out resources which is as equitable as possible.  In this case, an easily accessible calendar with a resource legend would probably be sufficient.  Some rules around sign out frequency and other procedures would need to be introduced as well.

• in this learning scenario, it would makes sense for Dafna to keep the assignment iterative as there is relatively few resources.  That way demand can be spaced over a longer period of time.  This would require Dafna to discuss with students the need for planning and time management.  Having them complete mock ups prior to filming would allow students to be more efficient and possibly decrease the demand for resources, especially for those that are also used outside of the course such as iMacs.

Dissemination

There are several delivery methods for her to disseminate the music videos once created.  Dafna could be aided by using the SECTIONS model to assess the technologies being used to house the multimedia and determine overall value (Boyes, Dowie & Rumzan, 2005) .  The following table, is an attempt to complete such an assessment.

Overall, each technology has its own strength and some which are similar to those it is being compared.  To make a final decision, it will require Dafna to take her knowledge of her students demographics and balance it will her SECTIONS (Bates & Poole, 2003) assessment with particular attention to categories involving Cost, Ease of Use, and Organization Issues.  Most likely being in an alternative High School program, there will be multiple dissemination methods dependent on students’ unique needs.

References

Bates, A.W. & Poole, G. (2003). Chapter 4: a Framework for Selecting and Using Technology. In Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education: Foundations for Success. (pp. 77-105). San Francisco: Jossey Bass Publishers.

Boyes, J., Dowie, S. & Rumzan, I. (2005). Using the SECTIONS Framework to Evaluate Flash Media. Innovate Journal of Online Education, 2(1).